Swiss program trains future CEOs among less privileged Filipino youth

Faced with the spiraling cost of education, young Filipinos can now take a crash course in management without paying a single centavo. Thanks to a corporate-backed strategic training program that promises to give students of state-run institutions a head start in the world of business.

Holcim Philippines, through the Education for Youth Enterprise (EYE) Foundation, is offering WIWAG Business Weeks — a computer-aided training management simulation module that boosts students’ awareness and knowledge of business economics.

"We are partnering with other civic-minded corporations in bringing the benefits of WIWAG around the country, specifically to students of state colleges and universities," said EYE Foundation president Jocelyn Perez.

She added that WIWAG allows managers from the business community as volunteer instructors to mentor the young aspirants in a training session that allows the participants to "learn while they play."

Developed in Switzerland, WIWAG was first rolled out in Tagaytay four years ago and has empowered at least 450 students from nine schools all over the Philippines. Corporate sponsors allow participants to undertake the training free of charge.

In the early 70s, WIWAG was borne out of the need to enhance business understanding among Swiss high school students who were found to be utterly lacking in appreciation of economic and business goings on.

WIWAG consultant Bruno Gmunder noted the same lack of business awareness among Filipino students today who have yet to be immersed in topics of economic importance such as the correlation of gross national product (GNP) growth to local business prospects.

In Europe now, he said, young people are more aware of the importance of paying the right taxes and treating employees in a more humane and reasonable manner.

The WIWAG management game simulates development of a business, teaching participants how to manage a company enhancing their understanding of finance, production, marketing and human resources as well as the interrelations among these functions.

Participants are divided into four or five teams with five or six members each who are asked to assign, among themselves, a CEO, an operations manager, a production manager, an HR manager and a marketing manager.

In simulation mode, each team is to develop a mock company and sell a specific product to a specific market. While preparing their business plan, they are given inputs such as macroeconomic developments, inflation rate, scarcity of materials and supplies, fluctuating costs of input materials, labor unrest and rationalization where they may have to consider reducing costs and even firing employees.

Daily, the participants review broadsheets and the days’ major stories especially the business headliners — an exercise designed to help them develop the habit of understanding developments in the economy and business.

At the end of the five days, each team is required to present their business plans before a general assembly of all the participants and for validation by a panel of trainors.

Among the schools that have hosted WIWAG are Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT) in Iligan City, University of Southeastern Philippines in Davao City, Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University in La Union, Bulacan State University in Bulacan, and Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila.

So far, WIWAG has already produced promising entrepreneurs from among the initial batches of participants and is opening new doors to aspiring business executives.

In 2002, one group of WIWAG graduates took out a loan from Meralco Foundation and put up a small bakery in Quiapo. The business did well but the group decided eventually to convert it to a computer service shop, which gave them higher profit margins.

The five-day WIWAG training program brings together volunteer instructors from sponsoring corporations and participants who come mostly from state colleges.

Before they teach in the training, the volunteer instructors are asked to undergo a training to extensively learn the WIWAG module. During the training itself, they are expected to enrich the instructions with their own experiences as line managers in their companies.

In WIWAG, both instructors and participants learn. At the end of the program, they usually bring home with them the WIWAG learnings and a deep sense of fulfillment.

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For inquiries about WIWAG, call EYE Foundation at 870-0165 or email to [email protected]